The headline is “Summer Intern is the Latest to Fall out“. I don’t need to go into details about what company’s dormitory the intern fell out off. Noted in the article was that the worker didn’t show up for work, was then fired, and the company was trying to arrange transport to the interns home town.
I have said this before on my blog and several others: if a young person decides to extinguish his light that shine for just a small moment in time in the void which is this universe, then the fault of the tragedy lies with himself. I’m not defending a really stupid company BTW. I just think that if we MUST place blame somewhere (and I don’t think this type of thing needs blame placement), then it must be with the individual who did this to himself.
In the Shanghaiist post, they point out to a quote in Caixin (I don’t know if its an editorial or quoting someone) and another source which say:
But Caixin points out that “this policy has actually sidelined Foxconn’s real need to dramatically improve its out of date business model…” Namely, that using human workers to do everything machines do in the West or Japan, and then running off when there’s cheaper labor to be had is eventually going to leave Foxconn with nowhere else to go. Or as China CSR noted on Twitter, “Foxconn biz model is polar opposite of responsible. Exploit local conditions. get caught. move.”
I would like to ask a question to the person who wrote the content above. If companies used machines to do everything that people could do, then why would they need to manufacture in China? Yes the answer is obvious; they wouldn’t need to manufacture in China. But then what good is it for China if they are NOT here? And who should have the moral right to say that China would be better off without this development?
I have read quite a few other posts that had similar views about Foxconn and their business practices. From what I read, I do believe that they have labor management problems, just like many companies in China. But Foxconn’s business model is not different from most Chinese companies, and really not different at all from other CMS companies. Which is to say – focus on keeping every cost to down, systematize and standardize every possible transaction and operation, and don’t spend money on improving employees.
My bottom line is thus: lets give the big stupid evil company a break. After all, they are not different from all the other companies. They do not have an alternative China manufacturing business model which works. They make products which we all buy (so we share in their guilt). And they are not BP.
[even more unrelated side-point]
BTW, I love this cartoon:
Its on top of the Foxconn building. The sign says “Don’t jump! Jumping will hurt body health”. The man on the left says “We have already done all we can!”. The man on the right replies “Its still a problem of the fengshui.”
2 Responses to “Taikongren, defender of stupid huge Taiwanese evil companies”
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I agree with you that (in my words) somebody who jumps of a building for stupid reasons like working for (or getting fired from) a really stupid company isn’t quite right in the head, and thus the stupid company is not by default to blame. It is a similar argument for people doing drugs, they also have something wrong in their head that makes them self-destruct, although some blame should go to the drug-dealers (for making the poison available) and society and/or government for not looking after mentally ill (in the widest sense of the word). For the stupid company, they might do more than put a “don’t kill yourself” clause in their contract. Fence on the roof? Barred windows? No hi-rise? Suicide watch? Gets silly quickly though…
Besides, I’ve seen statistics that indicated that the number of head-jobs at said stupid company is not much different from the percentage of jumpers in the popularity at large. So maybe there’s not a problem with this stupid company in particular but merely a problem in the population as a whole, of which this is just a ‘normal’ reflection. On the other hand though, the ‘normal’ way to kill oneself in China seems to be to do something dramatic, get on TV, and then jump or get killed by police, not in complete solitude accidentally fall off a building. So, what’s the stupid company doing that causes their statistically representative group of nutcases end their lives in silent, unspectacular ways rather than to grab a meat cleaver and take out their boss or their co-workers?
Lastly, however, it is not clear how many of these people jumped, accidentally fell, or got some help. Wasn’t there at least one who accidentally stabbed himself twice before accidentally falling off a building? In my family there was a second cousin who also died under these vague circumstances. Young kid, perfectly happy, making decent money working in Guandong at a large real-estate company. Sent chirpy messages home mere days before being found flat as a pancake, with rumors of a fight with some baoan. But no proof, big company, so no investigation. Made a stink and got some compensation for the family, helped by the police not throwing them out, maybe because they knew it was fishy business despite not (being allowed to) doing an investigation….
Thank you for your comment. Michael? BTW, Chinese mostly think that its mafia doing, and I have similar suspicion. I remember reading that in the big Soviet factories, the KGB were employed to create fear in the workers, otherwise it would be next to impossible to control so many people making so little money. So the theory goes,… company makes deal with Labor Union (CCP) who makes deals with ruffian types to hire them as guards and keep the workers in line.
I have never seen a security guard act rough or impolite to workers in Factories in Suzhou. But somehow, Foxconn guards get into fights.